The late Sir John Bourinot had completed and revised the following
pages some months before his lamented death. The book represents more
satisfactorily, perhaps, than anything else that he has written the
author's breadth of political vision and his concrete mastery of
historical fact. The life of Lord Elgin required to be written by one
possessed of more than ordinary insight into the interesting aspects
of constitutional law. That it has been singularly well presented must
be the conclusion of all who may read this present narrative.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I: EARLY CAREER 1

II: POLITICAL CONDITION IN CANADA 17

III: POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES 41

IV: THE INDEMNIFICATION ACT 61

V: THE END OF THE LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY, 1851 85

VI: THE HINCKS-MORIN MINISTRY 107

VII: THE HISTORY OF THE CLERGY RESERVES (1791-1854) 143

VIII: SEIGNIORIAL TENURE 171

IX: CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 189

X: FAREWELL TO CANADA 203

XI: POLITICAL PROGRESS 227

XII: A COMPARISON OF SYSTEMS 239

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 269

INDEX 271

CHAPTER I

EARLY CAREER

The Canadian people have had a varied experience in governors
appointed by the imperial state. At the very commencement of British
rule they were so fortunate as to find at the head of affairs Sir Guy
Carleton--afterwards Lord Dorchester--who saved the country during the
American revolution by his military genius, and also proved himself an
able civil governor in his relations with the French Canadians, then
called "the new subjects," whom he treated in a fair and generous
spirit that did much to make them friendly to British institutions. On
the other hand they have had military men like Sir James Craig,
hospitable, generous, and kind, but at the same time incapable of
understanding colonial conditions and aspirations, ignorant of the
principles and working of representative institutions, and too ready
to apply arbitrary methods to the administration of civil affairs.
Then they have had men who were suddenly drawn from some inconspicuous
position in the parent state, like Sir Francis Bond Head, and allowed
by an apathetic or ignorant colonial office to prove their want of
discretion, tact, and even common sense at a very critical stage of
Canadian affairs. Again there have been governors of the highest rank
in the peerage of England, like the Duke of Richmond, whose
administration was chiefly remarkable for his success in aggravating
national animosities in French Canada, and whose name would now be
quite forgotten were it not for the unhappy circumstances of his
death.[1] Then Canadians have had the good fortune of the presence of
Lord Durham at a time when a most serious state of affairs
imperatively demanded that ripe political knowledge, that cool
judgment, and that capacity to comprehend political grievances which
were confessedly the characteristics of this eminent British
statesman. Happily for Canada he was followed by a keen politician and
an astute economist who, despite his overweening vanity and his
tendency to underrate the ability of "those fellows in the
colonies"--his own words in a letter to England--was well able to
gauge public sentiment accurately and to govern himself accordingly
during his short term of office. Since the confederation of the
provinces there has been a succession of distinguished governors, some
bearing names famous in the history of Great Britain and Ireland, some
bringing to the discharge of their duties a large knowledge of public
business gained in the government of the parent state and her wide
empire, some gifted with a happy faculty of expressing themselves with
ease and elegance, and all equally influenced by an earnest desire to
fill their important position with dignity, impartiality, and
affability.

But eminent as have been the services of many of the governors whose
memories are still cherished by the people of Canada, no one among
them stands on a higher plane than James, eighth earl of Elgin and
twelfth earl of Kincardine, whose public career in Canada I propose to
recall in the following narrative. He possessed to a remarkable degree
those qualities of mind and heart which enabled him to cope most
successfully with the racial and political difficulties which met him
at the outset of his administration, during a very critical period of
Canadian history. Animated by the loftiest motives, imbued with a deep
sense of the responsibilities of his office, gifted with a rare power
of eloquent expression, possessed of sound judgment and infinite
discretion, never yielding to dictates of passion but always
determined to be patient and calm at moments of violent public
excitement, conscious of the advantages of compromise and conciliation
in a country peopled like Canada, entering fully into the aspirations
of a young people for self-government, ready to concede to French
Canadians their full share in the public councils, anxious to build up
a Canadian nation without reference to creed or race--this
distinguished nobleman must be always placed by a Canadian historian
in the very front rank of the great administrators happily chosen from
time to time by the imperial state for the government of her dominions
beyond the sea. No governor-general, it is safe to say, has come
nearer to that ideal, described by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, when
secretary of state for the colonies, in a letter to Sir George Bowen,
himself distinguished for the ability with which he presided over the
affairs of several colonial dependencies. "Remember," said Lord
Lytton, to give that eminent author and statesman his later title,
"that the first care of a governor in a free colony is to shun the
reproach of being a party man. Give all parties, and all the
ministries formed, the fairest play.... After all, men are governed as
much by the heart as by the head. Evident sympathy in the progress of
the colony; traits of kindness, generosity, devoted energy, where
required for the public weal; a pure exercise of patronage; an utter
absence of vindictiveness or spite; the fairness that belongs to
magnanimity: these are the qualities that make governors powerful,
while men merely sharp and clever may be weak and detested."

In the following chapters it will be seen that Lord Elgin fulfilled
this ideal, and was able to leave the country in the full confidence
that he had won the respect, admiration, and even affection of all
classes of the Canadian people. He came to the country when there
existed on all sides doubts as to the satisfactory working of the
union of 1840, suspicions as to the sincerity of the imperial
authorities with respect to the concession of responsible government,
a growing antagonism between the two nationalities which then, as
always, divided the province. A very serious economic disturbance was
crippling the whole trade of the country, and made some
persons--happily very few in number--believe for a short time that
independence, or annexation to the neighbouring republic, was
preferable to continued connection with a country which so grudgingly
conceded political rights to the colony, and so ruthlessly overturned
the commercial system on which the province had been so long
dependent. When he left Canada, Lord Elgin knew beyond a shadow of a
doubt that the two nationalities were working harmoniously for the
common advantage of the province, that the principles of responsible
government were firmly established, and that the commercial and
industrial progress of the country was fully on an equality with its
political development.

The man who achieved these magnificent results could claim an ancestry
to which a Scotsman would point with national pride. He could trace
his lineage to the ancient Norman house of which "Robert the Bruce"--a
name ever dear to the Scottish nation--was the most distinguished
member. He was born in London on July 20th, 1811. His father was a
general in the British army, a representative peer in the British
parliament from 1790-1840, and an ambassador to several European
courts; but he is best known to history by the fact that he seriously
crippled his private fortunes by his purchase, while in the East, of
that magnificent collection of Athenian art which was afterwards
bought at half its value by the British government and placed in the
British Museum, where it is still known as the "Elgin Marbles." From
his father, we are told by his biographer,[2] he inherited "the genial
and playful spirit which gave such a charm to his social and parental
relations, and which helped him to elicit from others the knowledge of
which he made so much use in the many diverse situations of his after
life." The deep piety and the varied culture of his mother "made her
admirably qualified to be the depository of the ardent thoughts and
aspirations of his boyhood." At Oxford, where he completed his
education after leaving Eton, he showed that unselfish spirit and
consideration for the feelings of others which were the recognized
traits of his character in after life. Conscious of the unsatisfactory
state of the family's fortunes, he laboured strenuously even in
college to relieve his father as much as possible of the expenses of
his education. While living very much to himself, he never failed to
win the confidence and respect even at this youthful age of all those
who had an opportunity of knowing his independence of thought and
judgment. Among his contemporaries were Mr. Gladstone, afterwards
prime minister; the Duke of Newcastle, who became secretary of state
for the colonies and was chief adviser of the Prince of Wales--now
Edward VII--during his visit to Canada in 1860; and Lord Dalhousie and
Lord Canning, both of whom preceded him in the governor-generalship of
India. In the college debating club he won at once a very
distinguished place. "I well remember," wrote Mr. Gladstone, many
years later, "placing him as to the natural gift of eloquence at the
head of all those I knew either at Eton or at the University." He took
a deep interest in the study of philosophy. In him--to quote the
opinion of his own brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, "the Reason and
Understanding, to use the